I have been through the hustle of not being first choice on very many instances, that for a while it began to feel like home. For one reason or another there always has to be a better person or a more worthwhile endeavor that in more instances than one, involves someone that is not me. Back in primary school I had an unspoken love/crush thing going on with a certain boy. Unspoken because he sat across the room from me and everyday he would look my way and just smile at me. My tiny virgin heart would melt as if exposed to some buttery sunshine, then I’d smile back. We never really talked, you know, verbally, but we DID talk, smilingly and to me that was marked territory. My marked territory. I had the deal sealed tight and safe. I was happy, and I was the envy of many.

[Quick side question to those that just don’t get the concept of marked territory. So you’ve come across my bobby pins, bra and a Kortex box half-full. There’s also three pairs of my heels on his shoe rack, my flowery towel in his bathroom and my clothes in his closet. Wotchu still doing in his house woman? I’ll tell you what. Waiting for the angel of death! Coz I ain’t gon spare you when I catch you there! Na-ah!]

One (fateful) day a new girl walked into our class and that was the end of my smiley bliss. She became the new recipient to the smiles that were mine and he never looked at me ever again, except for that one time when some idiot pulled my chair away just as I sat and I fell legs up. I moved on, many wet pillows later, and I hit it off with another boy. Nigga got me hooked with a couple of Jimw@t’s lines that went something like this,

and then dumped me for my best friend. I never really got to know why. I mean I replied to his tiny notes in class as soon as I received them, like the perfect girlfriend, plus my face was yet to be pimple-infested and my breasts weren’t as perky and annoyingly pointy as most of the girls in our class. I never did anything wrong in my opinion. Simply put, the boy was a thirsty bastard, the girl a back-stabbing conniving bitch. They deserved each other.

Anyway, since then I have been rejected, cast down and turned away a lot of times that for a while I just accepted that I wasn’t good enough and I was not worth anyone’s time. I have always been the one that is told to stand at the back in group photos (if I escaped being handed the camera to take the pic), or the one without the dance partner during salsa classes. Always the one that is picked last or left first. I have moved mountains for people that left me for the gutter, the minute things started to look up for them. Boyfriends have hit the road immediately an ex that messed them up and left them to die, came back with a handful of cleavage and shitty apologies, or when a crush finally decided to love them back. With a brave spirit I have nursed these wounds and carried on with my life. Pain does not even begin to describe the feeling.

Well I got tired of being last and playing second fiddle. I figured that there will always be someone that will think I am too quiet, or too fat, or too tall for a girl, or that my boobs are too small, or that my smile isn’t as perfect as some lady or the other. There will always be people that will never appreciate me, no matter what I do and how hard I try. And I have come to accept that that’s okay. It’s okay not to be loved or appreciated, even by people that mean the world to you. You just gotta be with people whose world would literally crash if you weren’t in it. Choose to be around people that will say that they are there for you and actually go ahead to prove it. All talk and no action is not only Bible-forbidden, it is also low, trashy and sick.

It is okay to have flaws. It is called being human. So what if they think you are fat, or short, or intelligent, or not pretty or classy enough? Fuck them and their opinion. In fact,fuck them twice! People that really care for you will love you unconditionally for who you are. They will support you and love the shit out of your troubled imperfect self. They will freeze with you when it gets cold and pick you up, no matter how many times you fall. They will always have your back, flaws and all. Therefore be yourself. Love yourself. Do you. You ARE AMAAAAAZING! And for anyone out there that is feeling inadequate, like I have felt almost all my life, this is from me to you…